Live albums make up a good chunk of any good jazz
collection. Many of the best ones were recorded at New York jazz clubs that are long gone. Some clubs even made their way into jazz album titles—like Wes Montgomery's Smokin' at the Half Note,Clifford Brown and Max Roach at Basin Street East, Thelonious Monk's Live at the Five Spot and Mingus at the Bohemia. [Photo by Herman Leonard/CTSImages.com]
Ever wonder where those and other long lost New York nightspots were located? So that the next time you're in town you can walk around and see where they were and what's there now? Here are the addresses of 28 shuttered ballrooms and clubs:
Arcadia Ballroom—Broadway and 53rd St.
Basin Street East—137 East 48th St. [pictured]
Birdland—1678 Broadway
Bop City—1619 Broadway
Bradley's—70 University Place at E. 11th St.
Buddy's Place—133 W. 33rd St.
Cafe au Go Go—152 Bleecker St. [pictured]
Cafe Bohemia—15 Barrow St.
Cafe Society—1 Sheridan Square
Cotton Club—644 Lenox Ave. at 142nd St.
Downbeat—66 W. 52nd St.
Count Basie's—2245 Seventh Ave. at 132nd St.
Eddie Condon's—47 W. 3rd St. (1945)
The Embers—161 E. 54th St.
Famous Door—56 W. 52nd St.
Five Spot—5 Cooper Square [pictured]
Frank Dailey's Meadowbrook—Route 23, Newark-Pompton Turnpike, Cedar Grove, N.J.
Glen Island Casino—Shore Road on Route 1-A, in New
Rochelle, N.Y. [pictured]
Half Note—289 Hudson St., near Spring St.
Hickory House—144 W. 52nd St.
Jimmy Ryan's—53 W. 52nd St.
Latin Quarter—1580 Broadway (at 47th St.)
Minton's Playhouse—210 West 118th St. [pictured; photo by William P. Gottlieb]
Monroe's Uptown House—198 West 134th St. (between
Seventh and Eight avenues)
Open Door—55 W. 3rd St.
Royal Roost—1574 Broadway
Savoy Ballroom—596 Lenox Ave. (between West 140th and 141st streets)
Gary Burton remained with the Stan Getz Quartet for three years, from 1964 to 1966. Even after the group's sound gelled, Getz was an emotional handful for Gary. Off stage, Gary went out of his way to avoid triggering the saxophonist's dark side. After Gary left Getz in 1967, he formed his own quartet and prepared to record an album unlike any other previously released. The concept was a jazz album that incorporated elements of rock—a radical concept in April 1967.
At the time, Gary was a big fan of the music recorded by the Beatles and other rock groups. He also sensed that the electric guitar was quickly overtaking the saxophone as the dominant
front-line solo instrument with younger audiences. The result was Duster, an album with guitarist Larry Coryell, bassist Steve Swallow and drummer Roy Haynes. As anyone who came of age in the late 1960s and early 1970s recalls, the album was a turning point in jazz and remained a big college seller for years.
In Part 4 of my four-part interview with Gary, the vibist talks about coping with Stan Getz, forming his own quartet and the thinking behind Duster:
JazzWax: Picking up where we left off on the Stan Getz Quartet, how did the initial tour in Canada work out in 1964? Gary Burton: The group was pretty settled in terms of
our sound. Astrud [pictured] joined because of the popularity of The Girl From Ipanema. She had been with us for just six weeks when we recorded live at the Café Au Go Go in New York.
JW: Is six weeks too soon? GB: I would have waited a little longer before doing a live album. As it turned out, we had to re-record two of the songs at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio: Telephone Song and It Might as Well be Spring. JW: Why? GB: We didn’t know the Telephone Song well and the
live vocals were off. At Rudy’s, we re-recorded the songs and mixed in an audience sound.
JW: What did the vibes add to the bossa nova sound? GB: It think the vibes gave the tracks a younger, hipper more mellow sound.
JW: How long was Gilberto with the quartet? GB: Astrud was with us for about a year. Then she left
to record on her own, and we were back to a quartet. Gene Cherico replaced Chuck Israels, and then Steve Swallow replace Gene, and Roy Haynes joined. This gave us a more traditional jazz group.
JW: What did you make of Getz? GB: Stan was bipolar or something. There were two personas there, and he had no control over either one
of them. He would either be a guy who was too nice or a mean vicious, angry, paranoid character. You’d try to avoid anything that you thought would trigger either one. And you’d try to head off all things that might upset him.
JW: Were you successful? GB: Sometimes, but it didn’t matter. He could be mean verbally or completely inappropriate and obscene at will. At other times, he shouted, glared or insulted. People would dismiss his behavior because he’s an artist, just like with Miles Davis. So Stan got away with it. But you learned quickly to steer clear of him.
JW: For example? GB: We had just finished a concert in Europe in the 1960s. Stan would frequently say obscene things just
for kicks. I remember we were standing in a reception after the concert. We were talking with a government official and his wife and a minister’s wife. Stan made an open, lewd remark about one of the women’s breasts.
JW: Was Stan’s wife Monica there at the time? GB: Yes. She just said, “Oh Stan.”
JW: What was the reaction by the officials? GB: The dignitaries looked as though someone had shot someone. They quickly stepped away.
JW: Was Getz’s behavior simply for shock value or was he unable to control the thoughts in his head? GB: Stan was always chasing after women on the road. He was very insecure. I think it was his way of
building himself up. He would also challenge a friend or anyone who loved him to prove they cared. Stan didn’t use drugs when I knew him. He was drinking heavily. He was a terrible alcoholic. The mental thing was probably with him from his youth. Either way the comment was crazy. [Photo by Lou Levy]
JW: How did you come to record Duster? GB: I had just left Stan and started my own band. I knew I needed to get a record done to promote my
new quartet. I had met Larry Coryell [pictured] at a jam session in New York and invited him to join. Eddie Gomez and Joe Hunt were in the group as well. We worked in Boston and at Café au Go Go in New York. Then I started looking around for new material.
JW: What was the vision? GB: I wanted to merge country, rock and classical into our jazz quartet. Steve Swallow joined the group, but the drum chair was unsettled for a while.
JW: Why? GB: I wanted Roy Haynes but he was still with Stan and wanted to wait until I became more established. JW: Why? GB: To be sure the job would last [laughs]. But Roy came over soon after, and we went into the RCA studio in April 1967.
JW: What was your concept? GB: To bring in outside influences. It was a scratching
of the surface of what would become jazz-rock fusion. My creative partner in this was Steve Swallow [pictured]. He got the drift right away and helped me write tunes and make choices.
JW: Who photographed the unusual cover? GB: Tom Zimmerman, a photographer friend who did several of my covers. Tom had taken a picture of a
storm. The image described the mood of the album but not too directly. I wanted the cover to be creative and it was. A duster is what they call a tornado in the Plains states. Tom also had photographed the cover of my 1966 album The Time Machine.
JW: Did you realize that Duster was going to be special? GB: Not at the time. I didn’t see the album as a groundbreaking thing. It was just another record. For the first year or two, my quartet was the Lone Ranger,
playing this new music that we called jazz-rock. We were really the only ones doing this at that point. Others were beginning to, like Gabor Szabo. Not until later in the 1960s and early 1970 did Miles Davis, the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Return to Forever advance the concept.
JW: Did you listen to rock at the time? GB: I was a huge Beatles fan. I discovered them through saxophonist Steve Marcus [pictured], a friend. I
was fascinated by what they were doing musically. As each album came out, I became more of a fan. When I left to start my own thing, I knew I had to find my niche. I looked at what Stan had done. He had combined Brazilian music with jazz. I asked myself, “What do I relate to emotionally?” The answer was rock and country.
JW: Were you also trying to reach younger listeners? GB: I think so. Audiences for Stan were twice my age.
I had this sense that straight jazz was not a good long-term set up. I wanted to connect with listeners my own age, and I was digging the new rock that had arrived. It seemed natural to incorporate them into my band.
JazzWax tracks: Unfortunately Gary Burton's The Time Machine (1966) with Steve Swallow and Larry Bunker is only available as an LP. Duster (1967) is
available on CD but it's out of print and is pricey. You'll find a copy here. Why both of these classic albums aren't at least downloads is beyond me. Gary's latest album, Quartet Live, is available here.
JazzWax clip: Here's a rare clip of Gary playing a solo performance of No More Blues, which he recorded on The Time Machine in 1966. If you're unfamiliar with this clip, you're in for a huge treat. Gary's technique and ideas are absolutely breathtaking...
By the time Gary Burton left the George Shearing Quintet to
join Stan Getz in 1964, he had perfected the art of the short, concise solo. But while a compact solo was essential for Shearing's group, Gary needed a completely different approach that rested more heavily on comping—the art of accompanying a soloist—for Getz. [Illustration of Gary Burton by Joshua de Leon]
Working with Getz also presented Gary with a range of other challenges.
Getz was notoriously acidic and mercurial, and somewhat puzzled by his newfound bossa nova fame. For Gary, Getz required careful management and navigation both on and off stage.
In Part 3 of my four-part interview with Gary on his rise to prominence in the 1960s, the vibist talks about joining Stan Getz, the struggle to fit in, appearing in Get Yourself a College Girl and touring with the band in Canada:
JazzWax: How did you get the job with Stan Getz in 1964? Gary Burton: Through pianist Lou Levy [pictured]. Guitarist
Jimmy Raney was in Stan’s band but was having alcohol problems. Stan was looking for a piano player to replace Jimmy but everyone he wanted wasn’t available. Lou said to Stan, “Instead of a guitar, there’s this vibes player I heard who plays with four sticks.”
JW: Did Getz reach out to you? GB: Chuck Israels, Stan’s bass player at the time, said to Stan, “I know Gary, I’ll give him a call.” Chuck invited me to sit in with Stan’s band at Basin Street East in New York.
JW: How did the first night go? GB: Not too well. Jimmy Raney had played steadily behind Stan while Stan soloed and I couldn’t comp that
way. After the set, Stan told me it didn’t turn out too well. I knew it had been an experiment but I was still disappointed in how things worked out and disappointed in myself.
JW: That must have been some blow. GB: It was. It shook me off my game. I knew that I had been awkward and unsettled on the date. But I got over it a week later when Chuck called and said, “We’re desperate. We’re leaving for Canada and Stan needs you.” I thought, “What the heck, it’s just a gig.”
JW: Did the group rehearse? GB: Yes. I went up to Stan’s house north of New York.
Unlike George Shearing, who had this huge library of charts, Stan had no music. He had records. He’d put on a record and say, “Let’s play this tune.” Some were bossa novas he had recently recorded.
JW: What material did the group pull together for the tour? GB: We chose six songs from the records. This
was the beginning of January 1964. I had a few of Stan’s records from the 1950s and his hit record with Charlie Byrd, Jazz Samba. That was about it.
JW: Did the group play many of Getz’s bossa nova tunes in Canada? GB: On the road, Stan minimized the bossa nova material. We did only two of them, usually toward the end of each set. The rest of the playlist was made up of regular jazz tunes, like Here’s That Rainy Day, What Is This Thing Called Love.
JW: Where was the group’s first stop? GB: Montreal. For the first week, Stan stayed drunk.
The club was pretty quiet. There wasn’t much traffic. But in Toronto, the crowds were bigger, and Stan started to take the tour more seriously. Meanwhile, I was learning how to comp behind him. He was super particular.
JW: How so? GB: Stan was used to the best when it came to accompanists. He wasn’t used to hearing the vibes
behind him, and I was kind of clumsy at knowing when to jump in, what to play behind him, and so on. He’d get frustrated at least two or three times a night and ask me to lay out.
JW: Did things ever work out? GB: By end of three weeks in Canada it had come together. We had a sound as a group. Stan invited me to do more and more concerts, and I stayed on for three years.
JW: In 1964, you appeared in Get Yourself a College Girl, a teen movie that featured Astrud Gilberto singing The Girl From Ipanema. GB: in those days, if you had a hit, the movie studio
that owned the label worked you into a film. In Stan’s group, we actually did two of those films. The first was a made-for-TV movie called The Hanged Man, a murder mystery set in New Orleans.
JW: How were you featured? BG: It was a nightclub scene at Mardi Gras and we were playing on the stage, with Astrud Gilberto singing.
After we shot that one, we were called to appear in College Girl. It was really just an excuse to showcase MGM/Verve artists. That’s why Jimmy Smith was in College Girl, too. We were on the Verve label. That’s how the movie and record business worked then.
JW: Your scene in College Girl takes place at a ski resort—yet everyone in the audience is dressed for summer. GB: [Laughs] Yes. We did that on an L.A. set that had
been used previously for an Elvis movie. There was a snow machine behind the fake window and fake scenery. There was a guy up on a catwalk letting down the flakes. They brought us sweaters to wear. Fortunately, the sound stage was air-conditioned [laughs].
JW: In the scene, the performance on stage is clearly dubbed. GB: [Laughs] In most movies back then, they didn’t want mikes showing in
the shots. So they had you first record the music in a studio. They’d tell you, “Don’t play too complicated because we want you to match what you played as closely as possible on camera.” It was easy for pop group to do this with a set arrangement. For jazz, it’s a little tougher.
JW: How was it to film the scene? GB: I was playing the vibes while listening to our earlier recording coming through the speakers. I was trying to match what I had done as best as possible so it looked authentic. We shot a few takes. Stan knew it was just for promotion so he didn’t care. It was kind of exciting to be in a movie. The playing wasn’t particularly inspiring or exciting.
JW: In May you recorded Getz Au Go Go, recorded live at New York’s Café Au Go Go. GB: I had been in the band about three months at that
point. Astrud had just joined the group on the road. Chuck Israels hadn’t joined Bill Evans yet and joined us during the run.
JW: How did Astrud Gilberto fare on the road? GB: She didn’t know many of the songs we played. She knew two, so she’d come out at the end to sing them. Astrud was the wife of Joao Gilberto and had dreamed about becoming a
singer. She had been given a shot on The Girl From Ipanema in 1963 and it worked out well. At the time of the recording, the Verve executives wanted to use authentic Brazilian musicians. But at some point they realized they needed at least one song with English words. So someone had the idea to have Astrud sing. Everybody takes credit for that one.
Tomorrow, Gary talks about Stan Getz, Astrud Gilberto and the making of Duster.
JazzWax tracks: Gary's albums with Stan Getz include
Nobody Else But Me, Getz Au Go Go, A Song After Sundown and Paris Concert.
Nobody Else But Me (March 1964) and Getz Au Go Go (May 1964) remain smart period pieces—seductive jazz recorded months before rock's British Invasion began pushing jazz aside. Just the sound of Getz's spirited, upbeat tenor sax against Gary's intellectual vibes brings the early 1960s back with a rush.
JazzWax clip: The YouTube clips of Stan Getz, Astrud Gilberto and Gary Burton in Get Yourself a College Girl are all out of sync. Instead, here's the film's trailer...
Between 1960 and 1963, Gary Burton went from a kid who
practiced the vibes with a tape recorder to a musician who recorded with established jazz artists. Gary came of age at just the right moment. Many of these artists were seeking a cooler, more contemporary sound, and Gary, in his late teens, represented the future.
After recording for RCA with Nashville guitarist Hank Garland in the summer of 1960, Gary was gearing up to start music school that fall. But before he left Nashville for Boston, RCA signed him to a multiyear record contract.
In Part 2 of my four-part series on Gary's 1960s rise, the vibraphonist talks about gigging in Boston, joining the George Shearing Quintet and what he learned while playing with the famed pianist:
JazzWax: So let me get this straight: you’re off to college with an RCA record deal? Did your professors hate you? Gary Burton: [Laughs] Not at all. Boston’s Berklee College of Music was still in a brownstone on Newbury Street. You
became friendly with the professors pretty quickly and worked gigs with them. There were a couple of hundred students there, and one in a dozen were advanced enough to gig with local jazz groups.
JW: With whom did you play? GB: Mostly with trumpeter Herb Pomeroy’s group. Herb and Ray Santisi owned a club called The Stables on Huntington Ave. They leased the back room and called it The Jazz Workshop.
JW: Was gigging key to the college experience? GB: When you’re playing in a band in front of a live audience, it’s a whole different experience than listening to the music on record. Audiences have an emotional reaction. For example, my instrument is very visual. Audiences get more out of seeing a vibraphonist or a drummer than watching other instrumentalists. With the drums and vibes, you can see all the movement that goes into creating the sound. [Photo by David Redfern]
JW: What was your first recording for RCA? GB: I went down to New York in June 1961. It was a session that featured a mix of players who weren’t used to playing together. It didn’t work out too well. So RCA had me do a leadership date in July. I decided not to take any chances. I hired Gene Cherico on bass and Joe Morello on drums. I had just recorded with Joe on It's About Time. The trio album was called New Vibe Man in Town. I didn’t name it. The record company controlled everything. I fought with the label for three years over their dumb decisions.
JW: How long did you remain in Boston? GB: I moved to New York after two years in college. I was getting a chance to play with more and more musicians and had a few albums out. So I felt the time was right to make it in the business.
JW: You didn’t finish at Berklee? GB: No. One of the main guys at RCA urged me to finish college while the label was paying my living expenses. But I decided it was time to start working full time. Almost immediately, I met Marian McPartland through Joe Morello. They were at the Hickory House together on 52nd St,, and I went down to say hello.
JW: What happened? GB: Marian called George Shearing and recommended me. The next day I got a call from John Levy, George’s manager. He said George was interested in hearing me play.
JW: What happened next? GB: They arranged an audition on Labor Day 1962. I had been living in New York only a month. I met George in front of a building and we went up to the studio, where they had rented a set of vibes.
JW: How did it go? GB: George liked what he heard and said he’d love for me to join his quintet. The only drawback was that he wasn’t going to start to work for a few months.
JW: Why? GB: He was attending a school where they teach you how to work with a guide dog. He said we’d form the group in January 1963. During this four-month stretch, I got one gig playing a wedding reception in Queens working with guitarist Gene Bertoncini [laughs]. I also got a call from Herbie Mann asking me to join his band. But he called back later and said he decided to stick with [vibist] Dave Pike.
JW: So you joined Shearing in January 1963? GB: Yes. I flew out to L.A. and we started touring. We played a live concert at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in February 1963. I had been in the band just two weeks. I was surprised how intricate the charts were and how tight we sounded.
JW: What was it like working with Shearing? GB: It was an interesting challenge and experience for me. George did not believe in lengthy solos. Everyone got to play one chorus on any song. You had about 30 seconds to solo.
JW: Did that become a problem? GB: For me, coming from my student days of five-minute solos, I didn’t know how to do this. At first I
tried to play a million things. But that didn’t work too well. Then I became philosophical about it, playing smaller chunks rather than long stretches. With George, I learned how to get into a solo immediately and pace it.
JW: What else was special about Shearing? GB: He was a master of harmony. He could voice and re-harmonize unbelievably well. I learned about harmony from George and melody from Stan Getz later. The other thing that George did that I wound up using is playing a beautiful solo piece in the middle of a set. That always becomes a hit with audiences. I was with George for a year.
JW: In 1963, you recorded an unusual classical-themed jazz album with Shearing called Out of the Woods. GB: George had a fascination with counterpoint. He said to me, “Why don’t you write a song for us with counterpoint.” So I did, calling it J.S. Bop. I had studied counterpoint for a year at college.
JW: What did Shearing think? GB: George loved it. He said he wanted to make an entire record with similar songs. We used two quintets, one with woodwinds and George’s regular quintet. But the record company, Capitol, was reluctant to release it.
JW: Why not? GB: I think it was too far out for their pop sensibilities. I don’t know why but under Capitol, George was never allowed to record anything original. It always had to be standards. He fought with them over this album. Finally they agreed that we’d do a record with our new music on one side and standards on the other half. Six of ours, six of theirs. We recorded the first half and then broke up the band.
JW: Why? GB: George decided he wanted to stay home and stop touring.
JW: What did you do? GB: I started playing with Stan Getz. But then Shearing called and said Capitol had a change of heart and liked the original tracks. George asked me to write another six songs, so I did. We finished the record in May.
Tomorrow, Gary talks about joining Stan Getz in 1964 at the height of the bossa nova craze in the U.S., touring with the jazz-samba group and Getz's odd behavior.
JazzWax tracks: George Shearing's Out of the Woods with Gary Burton is a superb album and highly unusual for Shearing during this period. The experimental recording features Abe Most, Justin
Gordon, Jules Jacobs and Paul Horn (woodwinds); George Shearing (p,harpsichord); Gary Burton (vib,p,lyre); John Gray (g); Ralph Pena (b) or Gene Cherico (b); and Shelly Manne (d). Unfortunately, the Capitol recording never made it to CD. You can find the LP on eBay.
New Vibe Man in Town, Gary's first leadership date, is available on CD but it's out of print. It swings hard the whole way through. You'll find it here.
JazzWax clip: Here'sTime on My Hands from Joe Morello's It's About Time, which featured Gary Burton and a host of songs about the clock...
In the 1960s, vibraphonist Gary Burton bridged three jazz gaps. In 1960
he was the link between jazz and country. In 1964 he helped link jazz and bossa nova. And in 1967, he began to link jazz and rock, becoming one of the earliest exponents of jazz-rock fusion. [Photo by Karlheinz Kluter]
From his earliest recordings, Gary always had a marvelous sense of
swing and sensitivity—without overplaying. His cool, four-mallet approach to the vibes added a youthful feel to many of the albums on which he appeared, and as the decade progressed, his sound grew increasingly progressive rather than hinged to vibists of the past.
In Part 1of my four-part interview with Gary, 67, the vibraphonist and jazz-rock fusion pioneer talks about growing up in Indiana, meeting Boots Randolph, teaming up with Hank Garland and Chet Atkins, traveling to the 1960 Newport Jazz Festival, landing an RCA record contract at age 17, and then starting college in Boston:
JazzWax: How did you wind up playing the vibes? Gary Burton: I was born in Anderson, IN. My brother and sister were musical, and my father played piano. All of the kids in my family wanted to take music
lessons. My older sister started taking piano lessons at age 6. I hovered over her and started messing around on the piano as soon as she started playing. When I was six, my father decided it was time for me to play an instrument. There was a lady in the area who played the marimba and vibraphone. He took me there, and soon my parents bought me a student marimba. Then they bought me full-sized set of vibes and marimba. My father built a platform so I could reach the keys.
JW: How long did you take lessons? GB: For two years. Then we moved to Princeton, IN, which was an even smaller town. I didn’t have a teacher there, but I had already mastered the basics. My father would buy me sheet music to play.
JW: Did you play vibes in school? GB: No. There was no place for a mallet instrument there. Instead, I played the snare drum. At first I didn’t know
much about jazz. I was playing everything from light classical to written-out solo pieces. Then at age 12, I stumbled onto a jazz record. It was a 10-inch LP of the Benny Goodman Sextet in 1954.
JW: Do you remember the name of the song that impressed you most? GB: After You’ve Gone. It was taken at a fast tempo, which knocked me out. I was already chewing at the
edges of improvisation. I had already been making up introductions, re-voicing chords, and fleshing out songs. The improvisers on the Benny Goodman record were doing the same thing only much more extensively. I then began buying jazz records to get the feel for swing.
JW: How were you able to figure out if you were on the right track without a teacher? GB: With my tape recorder. My father had bought me one at the time I started playing. It was a reel-to-reel. I
discovered that if you hear what you're playing, you automatically make all kinds of adjustments in the feel, pace and rhythmic interpretation of what you're doing. Your unconscious mind winds up making all the decisions. In jazz, you can’t think about what you’re doing. Your unconscious mind has to handle all that data at a remarkable speed.
JW: What exactly did you do with the tape recorder? GB: I had a strong habit of practicing and playing with
my tape recorder. I used it as my band. I’d comp on the piano with the metronome clicking to keep time. Then I'd play back the tape and practice my vibes along with the recording. When I’d play a local gig, I'd take the 50-pound recorder along. I’d just reuse the blank tapes.
JW: Where did you buy your records in such a small town? GB: The nearest record store was an hour away in Evansville, where I eventually took lessons. Every Saturday, my father would drive me there and I would
have my lesson and peruse the record store on the street level. I would flip through LPs by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, Horace Silver, Dave Brubeck, early Charles Mingus, and blues and roots records.
JW: Did you eventually have a musical breakthrough? GB: My first big epiphany came in 1958, when I attended a jazz band camp at Indiana University. It
was the Stan Kenton Band Clinic and was only a few hours from where I lived. My father dropped me off. It was the summer of 1959 was 16 years old. It was amazing. There were about 150 kids at the camp who were as excited about jazz as I was.
JW: Who was on staff? GB: Shelly Manne was the drum teacher. Kenton’s
musicians were all there. I was in John LaPorta's [pictured] band as the piano player. That band got invited to go to French Lick, IND., where George Wein was putting on a jazz festival.
JW: Pretty exciting? GB: There I was, playing the opening act with a student big band and Miles Davis' Kind of Blue sextet
backstage. At the time, I didn’t get what Miles' group was playing. It didn't sound polished to me. Miles sounded like an out-of-tune trumpet player. A year later I heard the band on record and said to myself, "Wow, how could I not get it?"
JW: Did you play professionally in high school? GB: In my senior year, I landed a job in Evansville, where I played in a restaurant five days a week—piano and vibes. I found a piano player to teach me harmony. I also was hearing all the stuff on records.
JW: What did you do after graduating from high school? GB: I had applied and was admitted to Berklee School
of Music in Boston. I was due to start in the fall so I had the summer off. But right after graduation I moved to Nashville because of saxophonist Boots Randolph [pictured].
JW: Why? GB: Boots lived in Evansville, where his wife was from. Evansville was about 2 1/2 hours north of
Nashville. Boots had heard me play. His friend, guitarist Hank Garland, had talked Columbia into making a jazz record. So Hank began looking for a vibes player. There were no vibes in Nashville [laughs]. Hank asked Boots, and Boots said, “There’s this kid in Indiana who’s great.”
JW: What happened? GB: Not long afterward I was riding down to Nashville with Boots [pictured] in his Cadillac convertible with my vibes in
the back. Hank brought in the bass player and drummer. When we got together, we played a couple of tunes. After the audition, Hank said, “What are your plans?”
JW: What did you tell him? GB: I told him that I was going to music school in Boston in the fall. Hank said, “Fine, but why don’t you move to Nashville for the summer, and we’ll play at clubs on the weekend and make this record for Columbia?”
JW: What did you do? GB: I moved to Nashville. Hank
helped me find an apartment, and we played the Carousel Club. In June, George Wein [pictured] happened to pass through Nashville looking for potential sponsors for his Newport Jazz Festival. He came into the Carousel Club, heard us play and liked it. We had a trio at that point—vibes, bass and guitar. George suggested that Hank put together a band and appear at the upcoming Newport festival in early July.
JW: Who did Hank hire for the band? GB: We got guitarist Chet Atkins and other Nashville musicians. Chet was a big fan of our trio. With his RCA
connections, he had some money available for travel. Hank brought in Floyd Cramer on piano, Brenton Banks on violin and other top Nashville guys. We called ourselves the Nashville All-Stars. We flew to Newport. When we arrived, we checked into our bed and breakfast. But when we walked over to the concert grounds, a riot was going on. When police saw us, we told them we weren't part of the crowd rioting, that we were from Nashville. They could see we were telling the truth.
JW: What did they do? GB: They said, “Go back to where you’re staying,” so we did. The next day our concert was canceled because of the violence and damage. RCA was there
with remote recording equipment because the label was contracted by George Wein to record the festival. Someone had the idea to record us in front of this rambling house that RCA had rented. So we set up our instruments out on the lawn, invited all the neighbors and the people who were still stuck in town. There must have been 60 people on the grass.
JW: Why didn’t you record indoors? GB: If we had set up in the living room, there wouldn’t have been room for an audience. RCA was there to do
an outdoor festival anyway and wanted a live feel. But they messed up. The engineer didn’t mix the tape well. I was disappointed with the final result. They had turned it over to an engineer who didn’t make much of an effort to enhance the quality of the sound. The musical part is uneven as well. [Photo of the Newport, RI, riot in 1960 for Life]
JW: What did you do after Newport? GB: I went back to Nashville with Hank. We made
Jazz Winds there. By the end of the summer, I was ready to move to Boston to attend college. Weeks before I left, Chet Atkins called me into his office and told me he had talked to RCA and that the label wanted to offer me a contract.
JW: How did you feel? GB: At age 17, I was overwhelmed. They handed me a 15-page contract to look over, and I took it back home with me to Indiana. My father and I tried to figure
out the legal language but gave up. The contract sat there for a week or two on the kitchen table. I wasn’t sure how to respond. Then one day, another contract arrived in the mail with better terms. RCA wanted me and had assumed I was stalling. They had decided to sweeten the deal. One of the extras they offered me turned out to be quite important.
JW: Which one? GB: RCA had agreed to subsidize my college living expenses. So I’d receive a $25 check each week,
which would cover rent and food. I headed off to Boston with a record contract. It called for me to make one record a year while in school. Then when I finished and started my career, I’d record two albums a year. I was the only freshman at the Berklee College of Music with a record deal [laughs].
Tomorrow, Gary talks about recording for the first time as a leader, leaving college, joining the George Shearing Quintet and what he learned from the experience.
JazzWax tracks: Gary Burton's recording for RCA at Newport
is called After the Riot at Newport. It's out of print but available here. Jazz Winds can be found as a download or CD on Move! The Guitar Artistry of Hank Garlandhere, which combines Jazz Winds and Subtle Swing.
JazzWax clip: Here's a taste of Gary with Hank Garland playing All the Things You Are, with Joe Benjamin (b) and Joe Morello (d)...
Can jazz survive Generation F? The "F" here stands for
"flighty," and anyone who has watched people in their 20s listen to music today knows what I'm talking about. Songs in iTunes libraries and on iPods serve mostly as white noise for this demographic group. Music is what you put on while working, organizing photos on your computer, i-Chatting or texting. [Image: Aleksander Bak]
This generation's electronic multitasking skills were honed as its members matured with the personal computer. Show me a 21-year-old today and I'll show you someone who can do a half-dozen things at once on the computer—combining work, socializing, videos and music. While iTunes injected music into the computer workspace (desktop), work always is the primary focus. [Image: Brad Norr]
This isn't a new phenomenon. Back in the early 1950s, radio
was much more popular and influential than TV among those who owned both. That's because people could drive, clean house, read the paper and work in the yard while the radio was on. The same couldn't be said for TV, which demanded your full attention.
But the way music is consumed today among young people doesn't bode well for jazz. In
addition to treating music as sound rather than art, Generation F rarely listens to an entire track, let alone an entire album. The record industry has been grappling with this album problem since the arrival of the digital download. Buyers cherry pick what they want for 99 cents rather than purchase entire albums. Which means most personal iTunes libraries are vessels for thousands of individual songs. Melody fatigue sets in fast and fingers commonly click for the next song before a track is through.
Jazz is listening music. You need to pay attention and become absorbed by what the musicians are doing, how
they're communicating and why what they're doing is special. Jazz has never been mass market music—it's not ideal for dancing, its melodies are complicated to listen to, and its history is too deep for a casual relationship. Now add a generation that hasn't been trained to concentrate on what they're listening to and it's hard to see how jazz will be perceived as meaningful going forward by a large percentage of this group.
One can only guess how the next generation coming up will consume music.
Ada Louise Huxtable. Following my article in last week's Wall Street Journal on New York City office lobbies from the 1950s
and early 1960s—and breaking news about the Time & Life Building (here)—I received a lovely email from esteemed architecture critic and historian Ada Louise Huxtable:
"Wonderful piece—who else is a connoisseur of those lobbies and could have written so delightfully and knowledgeably about them! So glad the Wall Street Journal gave it such a great display. Liked the anchoring quotes, too. They added that extra stamp of 'authoritative comment.' And you may have scooped the other papers by uncovering the new locale. Lovely."
There's nothing like hearing words of praise from a person whose work you've long admired. [Pictured (top) Philip Johnson and Mies Van Der Rohe with the Seagram Building model in 1955; (above) Ada Louise Huxtable in the 1970s]
Paul Wood. Architect Paul Wood sent along a swell email from his home in France on my Mad Men piece, as well as the following photo he took of Lever House in 1965 from the Seagram Building's plaza on Park Ave.:
Radio tracks. Reader David Perrine sent along a link to a site called Jango that lets you listen to full tracks of albums. Here's a link to Brettina, an album I wrote about last week. From there, you can click on different artists to hear other material.
Billy Taylor. Yesterday was Billy Taylor's birthday. He's 89. Back in 1958, Billy appeared regularly on The Subject Is Jazz, a television show showcasing jazz artists of the period. This clip, courtesy of Bret Primack, is one of the most fascinating in the series and features George Russell, Billy Taylor and Bill Evans:
CD discoveries of the week: Brazilian organist Fabio Fonseca's CD Opus Samba connects with the early 1960s, when Hammond B3 masters from Rio de Janeiro like
Walter Wanderley used the instrument to great effect. Like Wanderley, Fonseca adds zesty flavor and syncopation to the samba. Fonseca's Vida Vira Vida is of this tradition, as is Samba da Copa. This CD has summer written all over it, and Fonseca's command of the instrument and authentic Brazilian flavor is uplifting. The entire album is a blast and was produced by Arnaldo DeSouteiro, with liner notes by Doug Payne. You'll find Fabio Fonseca's Opus Samba as a CD and download here.
Most good baritone saxophonists wind up sounding like Gerry Mulligan. Which is a good thing, since Mulligan perfected the instrument's jaunty-basso grunt as a superb small-group player. Adam
Schroeder certainly has Mulligan's intonation and zig-zaggy feel on his debut CD, A Handful of Stars. But Schroeder has something else: A passion for what makes this instrument special—a big, bossy sound that swaggers on swingers and mopes on ballads. You hear Schroeder's feel on I Don't Want to be Kissed, Quincy Jones' Jessica's Birthday and Barry Harris' Nascimento. You'll find Adam Schroeder's A Handful of Starshere.
Oddball album cover of the week: Not satisfied to simply
place a model or two on the cover with vibist Terry Gibbs, the art director of this LP had the models place the steel keys in places the male consumer's eye was sure to look. I'm not sure how the two mallets under the floor-model's chin enhances the composition, but then again the felt-tipped sticks make about as much sense as the hood and gloves she's wearing.
Years ago, cartoons were wry and played a role imparting important life lessons about hard work and fairness, from Cinderella and Bugs Bunny to Little Audrey and Casper. What's more, cartoon theme songs were immensely hummable and became ingrained in the popular culture. Cartoons' widespread popularity had something to do with their showing in movie theaters before the feature film and then their domination of Saturday morning TV. Here are six jazz songs with cartoon titles:
Krazy Kat—Johnny Mandel's flag-waver for Artie Shaw's
bebop band was recorded in 1949. It's on Self Portraithere.
Little Lulu—Bill Evans' touching tribute to
the girl who was in and out of trouble, but mostly always in. His waltz-time interpretation of the cartoon's playful theme is on Trio '64here.
Mister Magoo Does the Cha-Cha—This 1955 novelty song wasn't Peggy Lee's
finest moment. To add insult to injury, Lee had to share the microphone with actor Jim Backus—the voice of Magoo—who added the sight-challenged character's addleheaded mutterings. It's on Peggy Lee: Classics & Collectibleshere.
Popeye—Organist Big John Patton's 1993
tribute to the spinach-eating sea-loving sailor man is on Blue Planet Manhere.
Donald Duck—Sonny Stitt's alto sails
through this quirky quacker from the 1962 release Low Flamehere.
Woody Woodpecker Song—Trumpeter
Woody Shaw's 1986 take on the "guess-who" bird's lumber serenade is on Solidhere.
Long-time readers of JazzWax are familiar with Paul
Slaughter's images (see "PhotoStory" in the right-hand column). Like the other generous photographers on the list, Paul has graciously provided JazzWax with images he took of jazz legends over the years and shared his stories about them. Now Paul has published a new book, Paul Slaughter: Jazz Photographs 1969-2010. The images capture the musicians on and off stage and show enormous sensitivity and love on Paul's part. [Photo of Dizzy Gillespie and Paul Slaughter in California in 1975 by Paul Slaughter]
Paul's book cover features a terrific color image of Sonny Rollins deep in thought
while warming up before a Santa Fe concert in 2007. All of Paul's images in the book have this element of proximity and tenderness. Paul also provides text on meeting his favorite artists.
Paul grew up in Louisville, KY, in the 1940s, where he had an opportunity to hear many of the big bands that passed through town. After a move to Indianapolis in the 1950s, his uncle and professional drummer Charles Mastropaolo brought Paul in close contact with jazz and jazz recordings, especially when musicians like pianist John Bunch and bassist Leroy Vinnegar dropped by the house.
In the late 1960s, Paul moved to Los Angeles to
pursue an acting career and had his own jazz radio show. He also began photographing jazz musicians in Hollywood, and it wasn't long before he was seeking and winning photo assignments for jazz magazines and other clients. [Pictured: Sarah Vaughan at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1971]
In the years that followed, Paul's talent for photography flourished, and he has traveled to more than 75
countries, taking photographs for film, television and the theater as well as the Olympics. But by Paul's own admission, jazz is where his heart rests, and you can see this in the images for his new book. [Pictured: Gerry Mulligan at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1971]
Interestingly, Paul decided to publish the book himself, using Blurb.com, which makes the
process relatively easy and results in a bookstore-quality hardback. I know other photographers who have used this site to publish their books with terrific results. Clearly, the future of publishing photography books—which is hugely expensive now for mainstream publishers—rests with sites like Blurb.com. [Pictured: Harry Carney in West Hollywood in 1973]
What I love about Paul's work is that he always captures the
introspection, intellect and whimsy of jazz musicians. He waits and watches and squeezes the button just as these stage folk turn and reveal a split-second private moment. Through Paul's images, we learn something new about the musicians that we didn't know before—how they feel, what they think of themselves or how much they love performing. [Pictured: Paul Slaughter]
Paul's lens is honest, and over the years musicians from Duke Ellington to Dizzy Gillespie have appreciated the work he has done documenting their feelings and finest moments.
You can preview images from Paul Slaughter: Jazz Photographs 1969-2010 as well purchase the book here.
When I was a college intern at The New York Times in the late
1970s, I worked for the editors of the Op-Ed and editorial pages. One of the editorial board editors was architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable, who had already won a Pulitzer Prize. [Pictured: Jon Hamm as Mad Men's Don Draper]
Each day I'd bring Ms. Huxtable a stack of new architecture books that
publishers had sent over for her to peruse or review. And each day she'd offer me the ones she didn't want or had already owned. Little by little, my love for architecture grew—through those books and Ms. Huxtable's writing. [Pictured: Seagram Building]
My passion, however, wasn't for the engineering and mechanics but for the analysis—what made great skyscrapers great and why cities looked the way they did at different points in time.
In today's "Greater New York" section of the Wall Street Journal, I've written an article on my favorite New York office lobbies of the 1950s and 1960s (go here). The article is tied in to Mad Men, which kicks off its fourth season on Sunday at 10 pm. on AMC. (Best of all, it's teased across the top of page 1 of the newspaper with a large horizontal photo!)
Most gratifying was speaking again with Ms. Huxtable [pictured] by phone
while reporting this article. Also rewarding was interviewing architect Robert A.M. Stern, dean of the Yale School of Architecture; Andrew Dolkart, director of Columbia University's Historic Preservation Program; and Tom Mellins, co-author of the magnificent New York 1960.
As New York architecture enthusiasts know, there aren't many original modernist lobbies left in Manhattan. While dozens of glass and steel buildings went up in Midtown in the 1950s and 1960s, many of their lobbies have been dramatically altered following years of serial renovations and 9/11 security tweaks.
Six modernist lobbies, however, have survived relatively intact—and can be viewed in all their minimalist glory simply by
walking in off the street. Best of all, all six have that cool, sleek martini-washed Mad Men look and feel. [Pictured: Lever House]
Next time you're visiting New York, stop in at any or all of my picks—Lever House, the Seagram Building, 711 Third Ave., the Socony-Mobil Building, Springs Mills and the Time & Life Building.
Here are the opening paragraphs to my article today:
"When Mad Men returns on Sunday for its fourth
season (AMC, 10 p.m.), viewers will again be transported back to New York of the early 1960s. The show's fictionalized ad agency, now known as Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, will have new office space—and a new building lobby. But where? [Pictured: Time & Life Building]
" 'I'm sworn to secrecy,' said Mad Men production designer Dan Bishop, who oversees the show's impeccable set authenticity.
"Mad Men may be about Madison Avenue, but the
dry-ice drama is taped entirely in Los Angeles. Last season, the show's brief lobby scenes were shot at L.A.'s old Unocal Building [pictured]. This year's address hasn't been made public yet, but a shift back east may be in the offing: The sleek Time & Life Building, on Avenue of the Americas in Midtown, is a good bet.
"Here are six Mad Men-era lobbies around New York
that you can visit and would make Don Draper and Peggy Olson feel right at home." [Pictured: Hans Hofmann tile mural enveloping elevator core at 711 Third Ave.]
For the rest of the article, I'm afraid you'll have to buy a copy of the Wall Street Journal in New York. The section in which the article appears, Greater New York, is sold only in the city. Or you can go online and read the article from anywhere in the world.
Jazz appreciation is a lifetime pursuit. Point being that no matter how many
years you spend listening to this music, you will never run out of artists and recordings to dig. The sheer volume of jazz greatness that was created, particularly in the fertile 1940s and 1950s, is extraordinary. What's most astonishing, of course, is how much of this vibrant
music was created on the spot. One saxophone giant whose name might not be familiar to you was Allen Eager. His brilliance is clearly evident on Allen Eager: In the Land of Oo-Bla-Dee (Uptown), a CD of remastered live dates recorded between 1947 and 1953.
In an era when jazz genius descended on New York in waves,
the Bronx-born Eager stood out on 52nd Street in the mid- and late 1940s as one of bebop's leading swingers. Before Zoot Sims became Zoot Sims, before Al Cohn became Al Cohn and before Stan Getz became Stan Getz, Eager was one of the hottest New York tenors. What set Eager apart was
that he was first in the East to adapt the Lester Young sound. (Wardell Gray was an equally early Young exponent on the West Coast.) Eager's high visibility in the hippest circles had a significant influence on many other tenor players who also fell under the spell of Young's horizontal, scale-centric approach. Even Dexter Gordon was influenced by the peppery Eager. [Photo, top, of Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Allen Eager and Kai Winding by Herman Leonard/CTSImages.com; Photo of Lester Young by Herb Snitzer]
Eager was enormously ambitious
early on, and in 1943, the year he turned 16, he played in the bands of Bobby Sherwood, Sonny Dunham, Shorty Sherock and Hal McIntyre—joining Woody Herman by year's end. At 18 he was with Johnny Bothwell [pictured, right], and a year
later, in February 1946, Eager recorded with Coleman Hawkins for RCA. What's most notable about this session is that Eager was able to record Denzil's Best's bop composition, Allen's Alley, alone—with Hawkins and Charlie Shavers sitting out. The song became a bop standard and was retooled by Charlie Parker as Wee.
Jazz at the Philharmonic recordings followed, along with sessions in the late 1940s with Red Rodney, Buddy Rich. Stan
Getz and a series with Tadd Dameron and Fats Navarro. Eager also fronted his own recording dates. In the 1950s, Eager recorded with Tony Fruscella, Howard McGhee and Oscar Pettiford. But as the music changed, Eager did not, and the hard-core bebopper stopped recording in the late 1950s until the early 1980s.
There were other issues as well. In 1948, Leonard Feather described Eager as a Jekyll and Hyde, "...his
Dr. Jekyll is an amusing, well-read and highly articulate guy, while the
Hyde side is a typical gloomy product of the frustrations and neuroses
of 52nd Street, with ornithological overtones." In other words, drug addiction was undermining Eager's potential.
While there is no such thing as a bad Allen Eager recording, the live sessions collected on Allen Eager: In the Land of Oo-Bla-Dee are special. The album
opens with a 1953 radio recording at the Hi-Hat Club in Boston, hosted by disc jockey Symphony Sid Torin. Eager's horn jumps on This Time the Dream's on Me, Out of Nowhere and Zootcase. The big surprise here is the stunning piano work of Dick Twardzik, whose imaginative playing and swing grab you instantly. Dig Twardzik's crazy chord changes on the song introductions! Sadly, Twardzik died two years later of a heroin overdose while on tour in Europe with Chet Baker.
Next up is a 1949 CBS-TV recording featuring Eager and Buddy Rich playing Eager's Some Blues.
The balance of the CD is devoted to recordings made in 1947 at photographer Milton H. Greene's [pictured] studio in New York. Eager is
joined by a range of musicians, including trumpeter Johnny Carisi, baritone saxophonist Serge Chaloff and Buddy Rich. Perhaps the most intriguing of the sessions features Eager, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Specs Goldberg and Max Roach. On Swapping Horns, Eager plays alto sax while Parker plays tenor. The two return to their main instruments on All the Things You Are and Original Horns.
If you want to hear what made Eager
special, this CD of live recordings is most illuminating. The more you listen to it, the more you come to realize that swing was only part of Eager's appeal. His inventive improvised melody lines and timing—knowing when to allow for space—were also on the money. Eager's horn is the sound of someone having a ton of fun. And it's still catching. Eager died in 2003.
JazzWax tracks: Allen Eager: In the
Land of Oo-Bla-Dee 1947-1953 (Uptown) can be found at iTunes or here. Go for the CD. The 68-page booklet that accompanies the CD features rare photos and extensive notes by Ira Gitler and producer Robert Sunenblick.
JazzWax clip:Here's Allen Eager and Serge Chaloff on The Goof and I from this Uptown CD, with Buddy Rich on drums. Listen carefully to how Eager (on tenor) comes in and out with the precise pacing of a boxer throwing jabs and right crosses...
Marc Myers writes frequently on music and the arts for the Wall Street Journal. He is author of "Why Jazz Happened" (University of California Press). In 2012, JazzWax was named the Jazz Journalists Association's "Blog of the Year."
